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About SouthernGirl2

A Native Texan who adores baby kittens, loves horses, rodeos, pomegranates, & collect Eagles.
Enjoys politics, games shows, & dancing to all types of music. Loves discussing and learning about different cultures.
A Phi Theta Kappa lifetime member with a passion for Social & Civil Justice.

112 Responses to Thursday Open Thread | Sally Yates learned about Trump’s #MuslimBan by ‘reading about it on the internet.’

“…Rep. Jason Chaffetz will join Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and a host of other contributors as an on-air commentator on Fox News after he leaves Congress, the network announced Wednesday.

Chaffetz, who is leaving office six months into his fifth term to spend more time with his family and gear up for a possible 2020 run for Utah governor, will not have his own show but will appear several times a week to talk about the latest political news.

While Chaffetz declined to say how much Fox News would pay him, he acknowledged it was an attractive enough paycheck that he wouldn’t need a housing allowance…”

Cory Booker — US Senator for New Jersey
2 hrs ·
Tamir Rice would have been 15 this month had he not been shot and killed by the police in 2014. I have worked hard to advance police accountability legislation since joining the senate, and will continue to push relentlessly until these bills become law. ⠀
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We all must demand greater accountability and justice in America. We have work to do and challenges to meet. Progress does not happen automatically; it must be demanded, it must be worked for, there must be sacrifice. ⠀
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Tamir Rice should be honored, not simply through words or posts but through a collective commitment to do the work necessary to end this kind of injustice, to end this national nightmare of unjustified police killings of blacks. ⠀
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William Faulkner wrote meaningful words about the death of of another black boy decades ago, Emmett Till: ⠀
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“If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous and unbroken front…⠀
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“Perhaps we will find out whether we are to survive or not. Perhaps the purpose of this sorry and tragic error committed in my native Mississippi by two white adults on an afflicted Negro child is to prove to us whether or not we deserve to survive. Because if we in America have reached a point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.”

Interesting quote from Faulkner. To murder a child and let the murderers go free is the worst, of course. But we might also say that if we have reached a point in our desperate culture where we are willing to deny our children an education, healthcare, food, and reasonable opportunities then we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.

Mika and Scarborough did not fall out with the buffoon because they suddenly woke up with a conscience one morning…or because they were suddenly offended by …or now outrightly reject his vile ways that they for so long encouraged, fueled and gleefully talked-up as ‘genius’ as they effusively polished up that turd and positively spun every negative and ridiculousness and tried desperately and enthusiastically to elevate him and his kkklan…

Even in recent weeks, you could see them beginning to straddle again between treating him reverentially with the effusive use of the undeserved title, and even beginning to return to their snake oil salesman don’t sleep on the ‘genius’ narrative they used to sell him earlier on…Clearly the ongoing private negotiations to be friends again, fell apart…

Whatever they each wanted from their dubious alliance, obviously didn’t materialize…the mutually beneficial truce they were working on obviously didn’t hold…

They fell out because alliances like these are built on sand…and are as fleeting, as they are tentative, self-interested and self-serving…Built entirely on what’s in it for me…to hell with whoever gets run over and hurt or killed in the process…Look for more of these very public unraveling of these evil alliances..

Who can forget all that talk about all the ‘great things’ daughter-wife and ‘brilliant’ Jared were working on and wanted to get done…who can forget the ridiculous coached interview just a few months ago with the lying, birther co-conspiracist imported 3rd wife who once again proudly shared about that college degree she has – and of course, those ‘5 languages’ she speaks…Or all the ‘good’ the ‘credible’ Dina Powell was bringing to the table, even as she endlessly ingratiated herself to the buffoon and remains self-servingly complicit, endlessly grinning at the buffoon’s side like the Cheshire cat who accidentally stumbled upon an open stash of bowls of cream..

Who can forget the endless months of Scarborough-mandated pro-buffoon on-cue co-signing and bobble-heading in unison each morning by Willie Geist, Harold Ford, Mike Barnicle, Steve Schmidt, Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, etc. And self-aggrandizing coward Eddie Glaude who suddenly got all tongue-tied, desperate to keep his preening t.v gig ..even when finally presented with a reality and racist buffoonish character and shenanigans, that now called for his know-it-all, faux-righteous rants and snide remarks..

Who can forget Mika still hostile and attacking and disrespecting my historic and ForeverFLOTUS…including falsely accusing my FLOTUS44 of all manner of stuff at the ‘inauguration’ in January that we all witnessed in real time…I’m still searching for the clip…

This volcano hasn’t even began to erupt….this overstuffed compromised pipe of dubious self-serving alliances has even begun to rupture…

By the time this is all over, there’ll be nothing left of anybody or their ‘reputation’…

Endless auditions for, and dalliances with the devil may nab folks any manner of very temporary gigs sucking at the champagne teat of government, that they’d otherwise never ever have even been considered for…like Kay Hutchinson Bailey as freaking Ambassador to NATO…and godly adulterer Calista Gingrich as Ambassador to the Vatican …or the buffoon, his kkklan and alt-right cohorts inhaling gourmet meatloaf in the People’s House…but it’s only a matter of time before this brazen exploitation and mutually beneficial participation and complicity in a treasonous charade orchestrated by a hostile foreign entity, finally implodes…

The upside is that so many folks have been permanently unmasked and exposed for posterity, for what and who they really are…the better upside is that hopefully, most of them will be permanently taken down and removed along with their greedy, self-serving, corrupt a*ses and terrible contaminating influence, from our politics and media forever …for whatever that’s worth after all the short and long term damage to our country, democracy and union, is tallied up..

But as long as that buffoon-supporting, lying, callous, soulless, racist pseudo-‘erudite’ Hugh Hewitt aka Sean Hannity in glasses, is now rocketed and actively and consciously legitimized and elevated and mainstreamed from his very obscure place in the crazy right-wing talk radio show into his own show on MSNBC, there’s good reason to distrust the top decision-makers…and good reason to remain alert, and to continue to not only boycott, but be as vocal about rejecting these vile rightwingers who for years have been very much part of the problem …but are now being conveniently white-washed, marketed and force-fed to a left-leaning as ‘voices of reason’ albeit ‘right-leaning’…Bull..

The NRA finds new ways to stoke the fires of the culture war
06/29/17 11:42 AM
By Steve Benen
The National Rifle Association has a challenge: the far-right organization has allies running the federal government. In practical terms, that leaves NRA members with very little to fear, at least in political terms. The chances of a far-right Congress approving gun reforms that will be signed into law by Donald Trump are zero.

To be sure, the NRA still has to contend with public opinion. A new Quinnipiac poll, for example, released yesterday, found that 94% of Americans – including 93% of Republicans and 92% of voters in gun-owning households – support requiring background checks for all gun purchases.

But the fact remains that the NRA’s Republican allies will simply ignore public attitudes on the subject – a fact the NRA’s members are no doubt aware of.

How, then, will the group keep its supporters engaged? By pointing to a different enemy: Democratic officials may not be in position to approve any national policies, but there are still liberals out there who, the NRA says in a new video, need to be defeated in a culture war:

it’s a pattern, thee families don’t get any justice for the po po killings, and settle for a few million $$$

THEY SETTLE FOR LESS $$$, for the life of their loved ones, to gain some semblance of RECOMPENCE. It’s becoming the trend. White cops kill and get off. They’d rather pay $$ to the families than get convicted, locked up and do the time for murder.

Pittance that wouldn’t even begin to cover the billable hours for the police legal team…

How is Mike Brown’s life worth a paltry and incredibly insulting 1.5 million…even less than a dog’s…

And that had to be practically strongarmed out of a grudging City…and with no apology or expressed remorse …

But the owner of the dog killed in Glen Burnie, not only gets a visit and apology and remorseful expressions of ‘understanding of the pain caused’ from the police chief, they also got 1.2 million dollars …

Nothing sadder than cowards conveniently reappearing when it suits their purposes, only to grandstand and mealy-mouth as they audition for that next ultimate political spot they’ve set their sights on..

And when that ultimate political spot doesn’t materialize, just how quickly they move on to their next pocket-lining gig…and back to ignoring the important issues and poor folks they thoroughly exploited for years to get ahead politically …

Co-sign. All these folks in cable news who built this idiotic “presidency”, now they’re in disbelief that the carnival barker they promoted is so undignified and acting so “beneath the office” when that is all he was ever capable of doing. Now he’s being mean, hitting back “ten times harder”.

And this is today’s news?

Yeah, what were Mika and Joe (news reporters) doing there in the first place?

LAKEWOOD – Public assistance scams in the township are both “widespread” and some of the “most sophisticated financial fraud” cases authorities have seen in recent years, one ranking law enforcement source said.

How could such an alleged scam work so well for so long?

Hidden income, fake applications and phony company owners were integral parts of a complex scheme several wealthy families used for years to fool the government into doling out nearly $2 million in aid reserved for the poorest citizens, federal and state investigators say.

A child daycare center was also used to help hide one couple’s true income, according to the charges.

Using public records, federal complaints and interviews with law enforcement officials, the Asbury Park Press examined the puzzle works of the government assistance fraud charges.

More than $1 million flowed through limited-liability companies – legitimate corporations set up to hide ownership – that enlisted relatives as straw owners and used corporate bank accounts to hide money, according to the charges.

At the center of most transactions was a local beeper store that helped transfer money across the globe, the charges state. As the 14 suspects were claiming poverty on government documents, they took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in undeclared income from the front companies.

That he is obviously republican, and that he enthusiastically worked for Pence for 12 years, is bad enough as far as I’m concerned..

Hard to imagine that this ‘upright’, ‘principled’ and ‘Godly’ alt-right chief of staff is leaving… after a year on the campaign trail and 6 months in with the treasonous buffoon, because he’s ‘disgusted’ …or out of some sense ‘principle’, ‘decency’ or ‘conscience’…Doubt very much that’s the case..

The perks alone are intoxicating…so, so addictive that even billionaire ‘Democrat’ Gary Cohn is so hooked… and no bridge is deemed too far..

14 states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare have at least one Republican senator. Here’s how the Senate bill would affect their states. pic.twitter.com/wLR970rvFc
— Bill Galston (@BillGalston) June 29, 2017

Reading the New York Times last night and this morning, I felt like I had been plagiarized. It seems that what was once a lonely voice is rapidly becoming common wisdom. It’s been a recurring theme of my analysis for months that the Trump administration had blundered badly by marrying his unorthodox and in many cases heretical campaign for the Republican nomination and presidency with a strategy that is wholly reliant on conventional conservative Republicans for implementation and passage.

In particular, the decision to sign off on the never-before-attempted plan to pass two budget reconciliation bills in a single fiscal year is beginning to look like a narrow-alley dead end in a very bad neighborhood. The idea was that the Republicans could take advantage of the fact that since they never did their budget work last year they still had the opportunity to finish that up with a health care bill that only requires fifty votes to pass (with the vice-president breaking any tie). They could then use the same legislative trick to pass tax reform in this year’s budget plan at a fifty vote threshold. Without getting into all the parliamentary rigamarole that’s involved, the most significant consequence of adopting this plan was that the administration believed and acted as if they would never need a single Democratic vote for anything, ever.

The first problem with the plan was two-fold. First, by relying only on Republican votes in the Senate, they assured that they would get only Republican votes in the House, too. In itself, that wouldn’t be a problem except that it gave House Republicans permission to pass the most right-wing health care bill their moderates could stomach. That bill had no relationship to the promises Trump made on the campaign trail where he said he would protect Medicaid and not leave people dying in the street.

The plan relied on Republican unity. With only 52 votes in the Senate, any health care bill would have to win the support for virtually all of their members. But many of their members represent states that expanded Medicaid. If Trump had learned nothing else about Congress during the Obama years, he should have known that they have factions and are hard to lead. Did he not notice that Speaker of the House John Boehner lost his job because his own members refused to follow his leadership and rebelled when he had to go to the Democrats repeatedly to pay our bills on time and keep the doors to the government from being shuttered?

After the riots, varying estimates of the death toll circulated. The police chief estimated that 100 blacks had been killed. The renowned journalist Ida B. Wells reported in The Chicago Defender that 40-150 black people were killed during July in the rioting in East St. Louis. The N.A.A.C.P. estimated deaths at 100–200. Six thousand blacks were left homeless after their neighborhood was burned. A Congressional Investigating Committee concluded that no precise death toll could be determined, but reported that at least 8 whites and 39 blacks died. While the coroner specified nine white deaths, the deaths of black victims were less clearly recorded. Activists who disputed the Committee’s conclusion, argued that the true number of deaths would never be known because many corpses were not recovered, or did not pass through the hands of undertakers.

The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation. Marcus Garvey declared in an inflammatory speech that the riot was “one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind” and a “wholesale massacre of our people”, insisting that “This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy.”

In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis riots. They carried signs that highlighted protests about the riots. The march was organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), W. E. B. Du Bois, and groups in Harlem. Women and children were dressed in white; the men were dressed in black.

After abandoning a quick vote on his original proposal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to come up with a revised health-care bill by Friday so it can be ready for debate and a vote when lawmakers return to Washington the week of July 10.

His challenge is stark: At least 10 Republican senators have declared their opposition to the plan McConnell originally unveiled, and he can afford only two defections and still get the 50 votes he needs to pass the bill. If he does, Vice President Pence would cast the tie-breaking vote.

McConnell’s central hurdle is that the 10 critics are split nearly down the middle between conservatives like Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee who want the bill to spend less money and repeal more of the Affordable Care Act, and more moderate senators like Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski pushing to restore cuts to Medicaid and provide more funding to states. At the majority leader’s disposal is a pot of nearly $200 billion resulting from the fact that the original draft reduced the deficit by more than the Senate was required to do. Short of simple persuasion, McConnell’s narrow path to passage likely involves a combination of more money sought by moderates and a loosening of existing regulations that conservatives want—if the various factions will agree to a trade.

Jesse Lee, a former official in the Obama White House, wrote on Twitter yesterday, “I say this in all honesty: you could easily write a bill with ideas from both parties that would fix issues in ACA & make Trump look great.” This happens to be entirely true.

Indeed, it’s the secret hiding in plain sight. If Republicans were serious about identifying and addressing the Affordable Care Act’s real shortcomings, they could work out a deal with Democrats, stabilize the marketplaces, offer incentives to insurers, and make meaningful improvements to the system. This would be an incredibly popular move, and more importantly, it would help a lot of people.

But it wouldn’t satisfy any of the Republicans’ ideological goals, starting with the GOP’s raison d’etre. The Washington Post’s Matt O’Brien had a good piece yesterday on the central pillar of the party’s health care plan.

The Senate health-care plan isn’t a health-care plan. It’s a tax cut.

That’s clear enough from how little thought it puts into actually stabilizing insurance markets versus how much it does into showering the rich with as much money as possible. Indeed, it would go so far as to retroactively cut the capital gains tax – something, remember, that’s supposed to be about incentivizing future investment – in an apparent bid to get people to create jobs six months ago.

“As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” the first lady’s communications director Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to CNN when asked about the tweets.

That’s that poor, fragile, innocent, own speech-writing college graduate who really, really wants world peace but was forcibly kidnapped and somehow found herself in bed and trapped in the for over a decade with a well-known shyster …

Where are those who’ve insisted that we should leave this innocent angel who loves and is benevolent to fellow immigrants, out of it …that we should rally around and help out their plan to use her and daughter-wife to try to bamboozle …to normalize and legitimize them and the evil blob as they hijack, desecrate and decimate the People’s House, our country, democracy, decency and hard-protections…

This is another greedy, corrupt one who can’t believe she ended up in a position that she’d never ever have been even considered for, or remotely qualified to do…if this weren’t now some dystopian nightmare, with a buffoon at the helm… and she living it up at the UN ambassador’s residence at the penthouse of a luxury hotel… and enjoying her South Carolina self-loathing a*se in New York, on the taxpayer dime…and endlessly kissing the considerable b*tt of the buffoon and sucking up to his daughter-wife, to keep the undeserved pretend gig going…

What Pro-Life Democrats Want from the DNC
Democrats for Life of America is asking the Democratic National Committee to alter its pro-choice party platform and make clear it supports candidates who oppose abortion.

CLARE FORAN
JUN 28, 2017

A group of pro-life Democrats met with Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez at DNC headquarters in Washington, DC on Tuesday, according to Kristen Day, the executive director of pro-life group Democrats for Life of America. Day said that members of her organization as well as other Democrats who identify as pro-life, including Democratic congressman Daniel Lipinski of Illinois and other current and former elected officials, attended the meeting, which takes place as the party is struggling to win back power in Washington.

Democrats for Life of America delivered a list of requests to Perez that the group wants the DNC to fulfill in order to reach out to, and welcome, more pro-life Democrats into the party, according to Day.

A copy of the list shared with The Atlantic calls for “a public statement on the Democratic National Committee website and a letter from the chairman to all state and local party chairs explaining that the party does not support an abortion litmus test and pressuring people to change their position on life” as one in a series of actions the pro-life group wants to see from the DNC.

But hard to imagine there are Democrats who are anti-life…We need to dispense with this false narrative…and stop feeding it…

That’s how the evil republicans – enthusiastic purveyors of guns, wars, prisons, and deprivation of basic basic care, health, food, education, and other protections…even for kids, the disabled etc, have ended up touted falsely as the ‘pro-life’ party…they are anything but…

Condoleezza Rice: Trump stands for American values and seeks to act in the best interests of the US
Matthew J. Belvedere | @Matt_Belvedere
Wednesday, 28 Jun 2017 | 8:46 AM ET

President Donald Trump may sound different than other presidents, but he believes in American values and tries to act in the best interest of the United States, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNBC on Wednesday.

“I believe every president of the United States stands for our values,” said Rice, who served as secretary of State and national security advisor during the presidency of George W. Bush. “You heard President Trump say, for instance, after the Syrian chemical attack, we can’t let that stand. What he was saying was the president of the United States can’t let that stand.”
…

I’ve never ever been impressed with or had any use for this selfish, self-serving, self-loathing woman who’ll volunteer to drive black folks to the slaughter for massa…as long as she gets approved of and validated by massa…and as long as she gets to keep her token gigs going …whether at ExxonMobil, or as token blackface at massa’s ‘exclusive’ golf plantation…

She’s no longer sneaking in through the back door at Trump towers à la Kislyak …

She’s no longer making Facebook declarations like this one..

“Enough! Donald Trump should not be president. He should withdraw. As a Republican, I hope to support someone who has the dignity and stature to run for the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth.”

She’s now out and proud treasonous buffoon defender and complicit enabler..

ROCKET CENTER, W.Va. — A few years ago, Sean Bridges lived with his mother, Linda, in Wiley Ford, W.Va. Their only income was her monthly Social Security disability check. He applied for work at Walmart and Burger King, but they were not hiring.

Yet while Mr. Bridges had no work history, he had certain skills. He had built and sold some stripped-down personal computers, and he had studied information technology at a community college. When Mr. Bridges heard IBM was hiring at a nearby operations center in 2013, he applied and demonstrated those skills.

Now Mr. Bridges, 25, is a computer security analyst, making $45,000 a year. In a struggling Appalachian economy, that is enough to provide him with his own apartment, a car, spending money — and career ambitions.

“I got one big break,” he said. “That’s what I needed.”

Mr. Bridges represents a new but promising category in the American labor market: people working in so-called new-collar or middle-skill jobs. As the United States struggles with how to match good jobs to the two-thirds of adults who do not have a four-year college degree, his experience shows how a worker’s skills can be emphasized over traditional hiring filters like college degrees, work history and personal references. And elevating skills

over pedigree creates new pathways to employment and tailored training and a gateway to the middle class.

Robots Will Take Jobs, but Not as Fast as Some Fear, New Report Says JAN. 12, 2017
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This skills-based jobs approach matters at a time when there is a push to improve the circumstances of those left behind in the American economy, many of whom voted for President Trump.

“We desperately need to revive a second route to the middle class for people without four-year college degrees, as manufacturing once was,” said Robert Reich, a labor secretary in the Clinton administration who is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “We have to move toward a system that works.”

The skills-based concept is gaining momentum, with nonprofit organizations, schools, state governments and companies, typically in partnerships, beginning to roll out such efforts. On Wednesday, the approach received a strong corporate endorsement from Microsoft, which announced a grant of more than $25 million to help Skillful, a program to foster skills-oriented hiring, training and education. The initiative, led by the Markle Foundation, began last year in Colorado, and Microsoft’s grant will be used to expand it there and move it into other states.

“We need new approaches, or we’re going to leave more and more people behind in our economy,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft.

This tells you what he thinks of his foreign in-laws…including his current Communist snitch in-laws who have off the radar moved into, and have been quietly ensconced in and are now living in the People’s House right now …

In his dysfunctional 3 marriage and counting world only the familiar type of ‘family’ like ‘half-siblings’ and ‘step-siblings’ make sense…

LarryO pointed out last night that the Turtle refused to put Trumpcare through the Finance Committee, because he was afraid of losing one vote on it. By not putting it in the Finance Committee, he would get it to the floor for a vote.

I was hoping someone would take a careful look at how Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s experiment in Voodoo Economics has worked out for his state, and Justin Miller at The American Prospect has granted my wish. Without getting into all the details in this piece, I want to make a more general observation. There’s a lot of value in what Brownback did to Kansas because it gives us a chance to compare what the Republicans say will happen for education, employment, economic growth, and budgeting health if they get to implement their policies and what will actually happen.

Since 2013, the job growth rate has been 7.6 percent nationwide, but it has only been 3.5 percent in Kansas. There are 34 hospitals in the state that are now at risk of going out of business. Both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have downgraded its credit rating, increasing their cost of borrowing. Public schools are so short of money that two districts were compelled to end their year early. Brownback found himself so desperate for operating capital that he looted the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System and slashed funding for the state’s transportation system.

In short, things got so bad that the Republican-dominated legislature overrode Brownback’s veto and passed a budget that, among other things, rolled back his tax cuts and provided more funding for schools.

The Democrats should not ignore these results. They should study them and they should figure out a way to highlight them relentlessly so that as many people as possible internalize the lessons. No one should have to endure what the people of Kansas have endured if it can be avoided. Republican office seekers will continue to assure us that the best way to raise revenue is to ask for less of it and that exempting businesses and limited liability corporations from taxation will lead to job growth. They’ll continue to starve education budgets with talk about providing choice, and they won’t stop attacking Medicaid even as it results in devastation for the health care system. But we can point, in all these cases, to Sam Brownback and Kansas.

Parents, including in-laws, are considered “close family,” but grandparents are not https://t.co/yrOErQwi9U
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 29, 2017

Stepsiblings and half-siblings are allowed, but not nieces or nephews. Sons- and daughters-in-law are in, but brothers- and sisters-in-law are not. Parents, including in-laws, are considered “close family,” but grandparents are not.

The State Department issued new guidelines Wednesday night to American embassies and consulates on applying a limited travel ban against foreign visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries. Enforcement of the guidelines will begin at 8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday.

The court said the ban could not be imposed on anyone who had “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

The meaning of “bona fide relationship” was not precisely explained, and the phrase has created much uncertainty for migrants and others seeking to travel to the United States from the six countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen…

According to a diplomatic cable obtained by The New York Times, “close family” is “defined as a parent (including parent-in-law), spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sibling, whether whole or half. This includes step relationships.”

But it went on to state that “close family” does not include “grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-laws and sisters-in-law, fiancés and any other ‘extended’ family members.”

This chart from the CBO report really says it all: low income Americans are asked to pay higher premiums for less generous coverage. pic.twitter.com/hT51OqJAfs
— Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) June 26, 2017

Constituents were barred from the public office of Senator @marcorubio because according to police “It’s a private building.” #SaveOurCare pic.twitter.com/0NJSDTcUUL
— Tomas Kennedy (@Tomaskenn) June 28, 2017

If anyone you know doubts that it’s ILLEGAL for Trump to collude with a foreign power as it attacks our infrastructure, RETWEET THIS THREAD. pic.twitter.com/mIr0OEpnm9
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 28, 2017

BREAKING: Senate draft of NDAA bans use of Kaspersky products by DoD due to reports company “might be vulnerable to Russian govt influence” pic.twitter.com/D3gylJN7Bq
— Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) June 28, 2017

Ron Johnson just said Rs will buy off moderates with a bit of added money.
If so, their criticisms were lies:https://t.co/yLT5BXbKYB pic.twitter.com/BQDtSGk5SF
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) June 28, 2017

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/28/17EPA sidelining science under Trump, Pruitt
Rachel Maddow looks at the dubious job Donald Trump’s EPA is doing as a steward of the environment and tells the story of Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.’s Board of Scientific Counselors, who was pressured by an EPA official to change her testimony to Congress.

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/28/17Scientist says EPA asked her to change testimony to Congress
Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the E.P.A.’s Board of Scientific Counselors, talks with Rachel Maddow about the pressure she received from an EPA official to change her congressional testimony and how the EPA’s outside scientific review board has been “decimated.”

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/28/17Republican health/tax bill tests loyalty to constituents
Chris Hayes talks with Rachel Maddow about the key to the success or failure of the Republican health/tax bill: whether Republicans from Medicaid expansion states care about their constituents.

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 6/28/17Another empty Trump threat falls flat against Comey
Rachel Maddow looks at evidence of Donald Trump’s long history of trying to intimidate people he doesn’t like with hollow threats of lawsuits, and notes the failure of his recent threat to file a complaint against James Comey as a setback in his attack on the FBI’s Trump Russia investigation.

That was my response to a question posed by my high school law studies teacher in the fall of 2001 regarding the philosophy of English political theorist Herbert Spencer. After I presented a brief report on Spencer’s life and work, my teacher put me on the spot in order to test my deeper understanding that went beyond a simple summary. To do so, he asked me how Spencer viewed those in the lower class and what, if anything, should be done to help them advance. After my initial confused silence, my teacher followed up by asking what Spencer would recommend doing for those we viewed as inherently inferior. After a brief pause, I gave my above response and received a nod of approval from my teacher.

At the time, I recalled being slightly unnerved by my own response. For someone to believe that an entire segment of the population should be written off seemed extremely harsh. Even my sixteen-year-old brain had a hard time believing that at some point in history people had actually believed they were superior to others based simply on how they were born.

………………………………………..

Unfortunately, today’s Republican Party is anything but logical.

Despite Social Darwinism having been long disproven as having any basis in scientific fact, the Republican Party somehow continues to believe that certain segments of our population are inferior simply because of how they were born. It is this distorted worldview that allows them to dehumanize those who are born from lower social classes as well as non-White males. If you believe someone is inherently inferior then you don’t have any reason to advocate for policies that could in any way help them advance. These policies could address such issues as education, healthcare, a living wage, transportation, addiction, or gun control among others. This is why Republicans today lack an empathy that helps create and maintain programs to build and strengthen the social safety net. Republicans see no reason to waste valuable time and resources on an entire segment of the population that was designed to be left behind.

This is also why Republicans simply refuse to acknowledge any systems in place that they have personally benefitted from. Because to admit this benefit would be to admit that they were once one of the “others” who were designed to fail. It is why someone like former Congressman David Jolly can repeatedly vote against the Affordable Care Act despite benefitting from it when he was unemployed. It is why someone like Paul Ryan wants to cut social security benefits despite being able to attend college because of it. And it is why Mitch McConnell currently wants to strip health care from millions of people with preexisting conditions despite having been diagnosed with polio as a young child.

Republican senators grow weary of Trump’s health care illiteracy
06/29/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
After meeting with Donald Trump this week, a Republican senator told the New York Times the president “did not have a grasp of some basic elements” of the GOP’s health care plan. This followed a Weekly Standard report, which said “several” Senate Republicans who’ve spoken to Trump found he had “little apparent understanding of the basic principles of the reforms and virtually no understanding of the details.”

The Washington Post reported today that “seasoned senators,” after speaking with Trump, “saw a president unable to grasp policy details or the obstacles ahead.”

Trump’s illiteracy on the substance of governing may not be new, but his ostensible allies appear to be increasingly weary of the amateur president’s ignorance – enough to share concerns with multiple media outlets – and it’s starting to matter more.

Consider this anecdote from a Politico piece published last night.

Rand Paul and Susan Collins are on opposite ends of the Republican Party when it comes to health care, yet somehow the two senators both left this week’s Obamacare repeal meetings with President Donald Trump thinking he’s on their side.

Paul wants to gut as much of Obamacare as possible and recalled after his one-on-one meeting that the president “realizes that moderates have gotten everything so far” on the health care talks. The centrist Collins, on the other hand, left a larger Tuesday gathering with the president sure that he still wants to make the bill’s health care offerings more robust, explaining that “he did leave me with that impression.”

There’s no reason to believe the senators are giving false accounts of their conversations with the president. On the contrary, it’s very easy to believe their versions of events.

What’s more, Trump probably wasn’t misleading them, either, at least not deliberately. He very likely heard them out, and said their position sounded like the sort of thing he could support.

But therein lies the rub: the president has no idea what he’s talking about and doesn’t want to make an effort to get up to speed.

Donald Trump picks a fight over Medicaid he cannot win
06/29/17 08:41 AM
By Steve Benen
At a White House event yesterday, a reporter asked Donald Trump to comment on the Medicaid cuts in the Republican health care bill. “It’s going to great,” the president replied. “This will be great for everybody.”

As a rule, “everybody” is a word Trump should probably avoid. He did, after all, promise Americans, “We’re going to have insurance for everybody” – which is a commitment he abandoned soon after taking office.

Nevertheless, Trump’s clumsy comments yesterday about the underlying issue is part of a broader area of concern for Republicans. Their plan takes intends to gut Medicaid – a popular program that covers more Americans than any other program – by hundreds of billions of dollars. The GOP response so far has been to insist that Medicaid cuts aren’t actually Medicaid cuts. As USA Today noted, Trump joined the chorus last night.

President Trump accused Democrats of lying about the projected Medicaid cuts in the Republican health care plan, but they didn’t. They’re just counting different things.

As Senate leadership struggles to find on a way forward for the controversial health care plan after coming up short of the votes it needed to pass before July 4 recess, Trump defended the proposal, tweeting that “Democrats purposely misstated Medicaid under new Senate bill – actually goes up.”

Yes, this is the line Republicans have decided to stick to: it only ****looks like they’re cutting Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars, but that’s a ruse concocted by those rascally Democrats.

In reality, of course, it’s not just Dems who’ve raised concerns about the Medicaid cuts; plenty of prominent Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), have echoed the point.

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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.